‘The Walking Dead’ Season 8, Episode 10 Recap: Talking Trash

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A scene from “The Walking Dead.”CreditCreditAMC

By Charles Bramesco

March 4, 2018

Season 8, Episode 10, ‘The Lost and the Plunderers’

The fact that this week’s episode of “The Walking Dead” takes place almost entirely on a vast ocean of garbage seems all too appropriate. The landfill where Negan and his troops take refuge provides a canny symbol for a group of characters who are mired in what often seems like endless misery: Wandering through endless corridors of trash, they’re unsure of where to go.

To the show’s many detractors, however, that image also becomes a less intentional symbol for the ills of this season.

The episode is full of false steps, but at least they’re in the right direction. Continued fallout from Carl’s heart-rending death in last week’s episode dominates the action, as various characters clumsily process the loss and wonder what kind of world would take such a kind and decent person in the prime of his life. The writers’ willingness to reckon with the full gravity of a character’s departure rather than hustle to the next set piece makes for a refreshing change of pace. Even so, the various expressions of grief were tone-deaf, feeding back ultimately into the same tedious cycles that have hindered narrative progress all season.

For no apparent reason, the writers chopped this episode into chapters, each of which begins with a title card bearing an individual character’s name. The first of these pseudo-vignettes belongs to Michonne, as she and Rick lay Carl to rest and release a bit of their pent-up rage. They’re probably the two people who were closest to Carl before the lethal bite, making them uniquely suited to supporting each other as they alternate between embracing their anger and putting on a brave face.

Rick readily joins Michonne when she decides to extinguish a burning gazebo where Carl liked to idle. She suggests her actions are a testament to Carl’s memory, but when Rick has to physically drag her away before a herd of zombies can fully encircle them, it becomes clear that she’s making the gesture for her own sake. It’s an old writerly device — having a character obsess over some meaningless task only to arrive at the cold realization that nothing will bring back the dearly departed. In this instance, it’s executed with less grace than usual.

That scene is not nearly as calamitous, however, as the inexplicable one in the landfill just before the opening titles. On paper, there shouldn’t be anything odd about this story beat: Michonne and Rick hear trouble nearby and take cover amid the trash, simple as that. But because of some catastrophic misjudgment in postproduction, the final two minutes of the scene have been cut in a way that invokes the surreal incoherence that makes “The Room” such a hoot. That’s not a good thing.

Perhaps the title cards were intended to quarantine the conflict between Jadis and Simon. Having been thoroughly dressed down by Negan, Simon scrapes up a bit of his masculinity by belittling Jadis and her Scavengers, going so far as to shoot her followers one by one, right in front of her. The show’s callous streak returns stronger than ever in this massacre, which culminates in a hail of bullets that the audience doesn’t see.

After Simon shoots the first few Scavengers who look at him funny, we hear him open fire — but the scene has already moved on. That last volley lasts all of two seconds and plays out offscreen, with only the rat-a-tat sound effect making viewers aware of the widespread carnage. Depicting (or, rather, not depicting) violence in such detached terms certainly falls in line with Savior brutality, but it also makes for alienating television.

Negan and his crew may be sadists, but he isn’t totally unaffected by Carl’s death. He spends the first half of this episode reading the Riot Act to Simon in a transparent attempt to reassert his fading authority. (While ostensibly this season’s primary villain, Negan has spent most of his screen time sidelined.) When Rick radios him in the final minutes of the episode, however, Negan expresses true remorse — the quality Simon cruelly punished Jadis for not possessing a few scenes earlier. Intentional softness is a rare quantity in this post-apocalyptic war zone, and Negan reveals a kinder and more genuine side of himself as he speaks about the future he had planned for Carl. The happy, gardening Negan we glimpsed in last week’s flash-forward shows himself, however fleetingly.

But the possibility of peace continues to slip out of Rick’s grasp as he succumbs to his vengeful fury. Rare glimpses of the future have confirmed that the show’s endgame is peace. But Season 9 has already been ordered, so we know our survivors have a ways to go before they get there. Rick doubles down on his commitment to war in the climactic walkie-talkie chat with Negan, swearing that he will fight on for his absent son. (Never mind that Carl’s parting words emphasized the importance of pacifism, as Michonne points out.) But every story about revenge winds up at the same nugget of wisdom: Wreaking more destruction cannot undo what’s been done.

Negan accuses Rick of having failed Carl as a father, and he’s not wrong. Rick can put out gazebo fires or eradicate Negan’s forces, if that makes him feel better. But if it does, that’s all it will do. He can move heaven and earth, but none of it will bring back his son.

A Few Thoughts While We Survey the Wreckage:

• Jadis certainly gets the rawest of this episode’s many raw deals, considering suicide-by-industrial meat grinder as she contemplates her failure to protect her Scavengers. She stares suggestively into the makeshift death trap she’s laid for the walkers pursuing her, as if she might just use it on herself before deciding she may as well live. It’s a craven plot device: out of character for Jadis, out of joint with the overall atmosphere of the episode and out of mind after the scene wraps up.

• Still, compliments to the prop department responsible for concocting the thick paste of ground zombie pouring out of Jadis’s repurposed car-crusher. For the first time in a long time, the over-the-top gore hits the ridiculous extremes of a good Z-movie.